CONCLUSION OF A THREE-PART NOVEL
By Arthur J. Burks
CHAPTER XIX
_Desolation_
Stranger, more thrilling even than had been the flight of the Earth
after being forced out of its orbit, was the flight of those dozen
aircars of the Moon, bearing the rebels of Dalis' Gens back to Earth.
[Sidenote: Martian fire-balls and the terrific Moon-cubes wreak
tremendous destruction on helpless Earth in the final death struggle of
the warring worlds.]
For the light which glowed from the bodies of the rebels, which had been
given them by their passage through the white flames, was transmitted to
the cars themselves, so that they glowed as with an inner radiance of
their own--like comets flashing across the night.
Strange alchemy, which Sarka wondered about and, wondering, looked ahead
to the time when he should be able, within his laboratory, to analyze
the force it embodied, and thus gain new scientific knowledge of untold
value to people of the Earth.
As the cars raced across outer darkness, moving at top speed, greater
than ever attained before by man, greater than even these mighty cars
had traveled, Sarka looked ahead, and wondered about the fearful report
his father had just given him.
That there was an alliance between Mars and the Moon seemed almost
unbelievable. How had they managed the first contact, the first
negotiations leading to the compact between two such alien peoples? Had
there been any flights exchanged by the two worlds, surely the
scientists of Earth would have known about it. But there had not, though
there had been times and times when Sarka had peered closely enough at
the surface of both the Moon and of Mars to see the activities, or the
results of the activities, of the peoples of the two worlds.
Somehow, however, communication, if Sarka the Second had guessed
correctly, had been managed between Mars and the Moon; and now that the
Earth was a free flying orb the two were in alliance against it, perhaps
for the same reason that the Earth had gone a-voyaging.
* * * * *
Side by side sat Sarka and Jaska, their eager eyes peering through the
forward end of the flashing aircar toward the Earth, growing minute by
minute larger. They were able, after some hours, to make out the
outlines of what had once been continents, to see the shadows in valleys
which had once held the oceans of Earth....
And always, as they stared and literally willed the cubes which piloted
and were the motive power of the aircars to speed and more speed, that
marvelous display of interplanetary fireworks which had aroused the
concern of Sarka the Second.
What were those lights? Whence did they emanate? Sarka the Second had
said that they came from Mars, yet Mars was invisible to those in the
speeding aircars, which argued that it was hidden behind the Earth.
There was no way of knowing how close it was to the home of these rebels
of Dalis' Gens.
And ever, as they flashed forward, Sarka was recalling that vague hint
on the lips of Jaska, to the effect that Luar, for all her sovereignty
of the Moon, might be, nonetheless, a native of the Earth. But....
How? Why? When? There were no answers to any of the questions yet. If
she were a native of Earth, how had she reached the Moon? When had she
been sent there? Who was she? Her name, Luar, was a strange one, and
Sarka studied it for many minutes, rolling the odd syllables of it over
his tongue, wondering where, on the Earth, he had heard names, or words,
similar to it. This produced no result, until he tried substituting
various letters; then, again, adding various letters. When he achieved a
certain result at last, he gasped, and his brain was a-whirl.
* * * * *
Luar, by the addition of the letter _n_, between the _u_ and the _a_,
became Lunar, meaning "of the Moon!" Yet Lunar was unmistakably a word
derived from the language of the Earth! It was possible, of course, that
this was mere coincidence; but, taken in connection with the suspicions
of Jaska, and the incontrovertible fact that Luar resembled people of
the Earth, Sarka did not believe in this particular whim of coincidence.
Who was Luar?
His mind went back to the clucking sounds which, among the Gnomes of the
Moon, passed for speech. He pondered anew. He shaped his lips, as nearly
as possible, to make the clucking sounds he had heard, and discovered
that it was very difficult to manage the letter _n_!
The conclusion was inescapable: This woman, Luar, had once been _Lunar_,
the _n_, down the centuries, being dropped because difficult for the
Gnomes to pronounce.
"Yes, Jaska," he said suddenly, "somewhere on Earth, when we reach it,
we may discover the secret of Luar--and know far more about Dalis than
we have ever known before!"
Jaska merely smiled her inscrutable smile, and did not answer. By
intuition, she already knew. Let Sarka arrive at her conclusion by
scientific methods if he desired, and she would simply smile anew.
Sarka thought of the manner in which Jaska and he had been transported
to the Moon; of how much Dalis seemed to know of the secrets of the
laboratory of the Sarkas. Might he not have known, two centuries ago, of
the Secret Exit Dome, and somehow managed to make use of it in some
ghastly experiment? And still the one question remained unanswered: Who
was Luar?
* * * * *
The Earth was now so close that details were plainly seen. The Himalayas
were out of sight, over the Earth, and by a mental command Sarka managed
to change slightly the course of the dozen aircars. By passing over the
curve of the Earth at a high altitude, he hoped also to see from above
something of the result of the strange aerial bombardment of which his
father had spoken.
In their flight, which had been, to them a flight through the glories of
a super-heavenly Universe, they had lost all count of time. Neither
Sarka nor Jaska, nor yet the people in those other aircars, could have
told how long they had been flying, when, coming over the curve of the
Earth, at an elevation of something like three miles, they were able at
last to see into the area which had once housed the Gens of Dalis.
A gasp of horror escaped the lips of Sarka and of Jaska.
The Gens of Dalis had occupied all the territory northward to the Pole,
from a line drawn east and west through the southernmost of what had
once been the Hawaiian Islands. Upon this area had struck the strange
blue light from the deep Cone of the Moon.
Here, however, the light was invisible, and Sarka flew on in fear that
somehow his aircars would blunder into it, and be destroyed--for that
the blue light was an agent of ghastly destruction became instantly
apparent.
* * * * *
The dwellings of the Gens of Dalis were broken and smashed into chaotic
ruins. Over all the area, and even into the area of the Gens southward
of that which had been Dalis, the blind gods of destruction had
practically made a clean sweep. Sarka had opportunity to thank God that,
at the time the blue column had struck the Earth, it had struck at the
spot which had been almost emptied of people, and realized that blind
chance had caused it. For, in order for the Gens of Dalis to be in
position to launch their attack against the Moon, he had managed, by
manipulating the speed of the Beryls, to bring that area into position
directly opposite the Moon.
Had it been otherwise, the blue column might have struck anywhere, and
wiped out millions of lives!
"God, Jaska," murmured Sarka. "Look!"
Think of a shoreline, once lined with mighty buildings, after the
passage of a tidal wave greater than ever before known to man. The
devastation would be indescribable. Multiply that shoreline by the vast
area which had housed the Gens of Dalis, and the mental picture is
almost too big to grasp. Chaos, catastrophe, approaching an infinity of
destruction.
The materials of which the vast buildings, set close together, had been
made, had been twisted into grotesque, nightmarish shapes, and the whole
fused into a burned and gleaming mass--which covered half of what had
once been a mighty ocean--as though a bomb larger and more devastating
than ever imagined of man, a bomb large enough to rock the Earth, had
landed in the midst of the area once occupied by the Gens of Dalis!
Yet, Sarka knew, remembering the murmuring of the blue column as it came
out of the cone, all this devastation had been caused in almost absolute
silence. People could have watched and seen these deserted buildings
slowly fuse together, run together as molten metal runs together, like
the lava from a volcano of long ago under the ponderous moving to and
fro of some invisible, juggernautlike agency.
* * * * *
Sarka shuddered, trying to picture in his mind the massing of the
minions of Mars, who thus saw a new country given into their hands--if
they could take it. Had the Earth been taken by surprise? Had Sarka the
Second been able to prepare for the approaching catastrophe?
"Father," he sent his thoughts racing on ahead of him, "are those lights
which are striking the Earth causing any damage?"
"Only," came back the instant answer, "in that they destroy the courage
of the people of the Earth! The people, however, now know that Sarka is
returning, and their courage rises again! The flames are merely a hint
of what faces us; but the people will rise and follow you wherever you
lead!"
So, as they raced across the area of devastation, the face of Sarka
became calm again. On a chance, he sent a single sentence of strange
meaning to his father.
"The ruler of the Moon is a woman called Luar, which seems a contraction
of Lunar!"
For many minutes Sarka the Second made no answer. When it came it
startled Sarka to the depths of him, despite the fact that he had
expected to be startled.
"There was a woman named Lunar!"
CHAPTER XX
_Sarka Commands Again_
Ahead, through the storms which still hung tenaciously to the roof of
the world, flashed those dozen aircars of the Moon. Now Sarka could
plainly see the dome of his laboratory, and from the depths of him
welled up that strange glow which Earthlings recognize as the joy of
returning home, than which there is none, save the love for a woman,
greater.
Now he could see the effect of those flares, or lights, from Mars, which
impinged on the face of the Earth, though he could see no purpose in
them, no reason for their being, since they seemed to do no damage at
all, though the effect of them was weird in the extreme.
Outer darkness, rent with ripping, roaring storms, flurries of ice, snow
and sleet, shot through and through by balls of lambent flames in
unguessable numbers. Eery lights which struck the surface of the Earth,
bounded away and, half a mile or so from the surface again, burst into
flaming pin-wheels, like skyrockets of ancient times. Strange lights,
causing weird effects, but producing no damage at all, save to lessen to
some extent the courage of Earthlings, because they did not understand
these things. And always, down the ages, man had stood most in fear of
the Unknown.
* * * * *
Sarka peered off across the heavens where a ball of flame now seemed to
be rising over the horizon, and was amazed at the size of this planet.
Mars was close to Earth, so close that, had they possessed aircars like
those of the Moon-people--which remained to be seen--they could easily
have attacked the Earth.
Across the face of the Earth flashed those fiery will-o'-the-wisps from
Mars, without rhyme or reason; yet Sarka knew positively that they
possessed some meaning, and that the Earth had been forced thus close to
Mars for a purpose. What that purpose was must yet be discovered.
Then, under the aircars, the laboratory of Sarka.
Down dropped the aircars to a landing near the laboratory, and to the
cubes in the forepeak of each Sarka sent the mental command:
"Assure yourselves that the aircars will remain where they are! Muster
inside the laboratory, keeping well away from the Master Beryl!"
Then to the people who had returned, clothed in strange radiance, from
the Moon with Sarka and with Jaska he spoke:
"Leave the cars and enter my laboratory, where further orders will be
given you!"
With Jaska still by his side, Sarka entered the laboratory through the
Exit Dome. Inside, clothing was swiftly brought for the rebels, for
Sarka and for Jaska. But, even when they were clothed, these people who
had come back seemed to glow with an inner radiance which transfigured
them.
Sarka the Second, his face drawn and pale, came from the Observatory to
meet his son, and the two were clasped in each other's arms for a
moment. Sarka the Second, who had looked no older than his son, seemed
to have aged a dozen centuries in the time Sarka had been gone.
But it was not of the threatened attack by Martians that Sarka the
Second spoke. He made no statement. He merely asked a question:
"Was Lunar very beautiful, and just a bit unearthly in appearance?"
* * * * *
Sarka started.
"Yes. Beautiful! Wondrously, fearfully beautiful: but I had the feeling
that she had no heart or soul, no conscience: that she was
somehow--well, bestial!"
A moan of anguish escaped Sarka the Second.
"Dalis again!" he ejaculated. "But much of the fault was mine! Before
you were born, we scientists of Earth had already several times realized
the necessity of expansion for the children of Earth if they were to
continue. Dalis' proposal to my father was discarded, because it
involved the wholesale taking of life. But after the oceans had been
obliterated, and the human family still outgrew its bounds, Dalis came
to my father and me with still another proposal. It involved a strange,
other-worldly young woman whom he called Lunar! Her family--well,
nothing was known about her, for her family could not be traced. Wiped
out, I presume, in some inter-family quarrel, leaving her alone. Dalis
found her, took an interest in her, and the very strangeness of her gave
him his idea, which he brought to my father and me.
"His proposal was somewhat like that which you made when we sent the
Earth out of its orbit into outer space, save that Dalis' scheme
involved no such program. His was simply a proposal to somehow
communicate with the Moon by the use of an interplanetary rocket that
should carry a human passenger.
"He put the idea up to this girl, Lunar, and she did not seem to care
one way or another. Dalis was all wrapped up in his ideas, and gave the
girl the name of Lunar, as being symbolical of his plans for her. He
coached and trained her against the consummation of his plan. We knew
something, theoretically at least, about the conditions on the Moon, and
everything possible was done for her, to make it feasible for her to
exist on the Moon. My error was in ever permitting the experiment to be
made, since if I had negatived the idea. Dalis would have gone no
further!
"But I, too, was curious, and Lunar did not care. Well, the rocket was
constructed, and shot outward into space by a series of explosions. No
word was ever received from Lunar, though it was known that she landed
on the Moon!
* * * * *
"I say no word was ever received, yet what you have intimated proves
that Dalis has either been in mental communication with her, hoping to
induce her to send a force against the Earth, and assist him in
mastering the Earth, overthrowing we Sarkas--or has been biding his
time against something of the thing we have now accomplished."
This seemed to clear up many things for Sarka, though it piled higher
upon his shoulders the weight of his responsibilities. The
other-worldliness of Lunar, called now Luar, explained her mastery of
the Gnomes, and through them the cubes, and her knowledge of the
omnipotent qualities of the white flames of the Moon's core, which might
have been, it came to Sarka in a flash, the source of all life on the
Moon in the beginning!
"But father," went on Sarka, "I don't see any sense in this aerial
bombardment by Mars!"
"I believe," said Sarka the Second sadly, "that before another ten hours
pass we shall know the worst there is to be known: but now, son, instead
of going into attack against the Moon, we go into battle against the
combined forces of Mars and of the Moon!"
* * * * *
Sarka now took command of the forces of the Earth. Swiftly he turned to
the people of the Gens of Dalis who had come back with him.
"You will be divided into eleven equal groups, as nearly as possible.
Father, will you please arrange the division? Each group will be
attached to the staff of one of the Spokesman of the Gens, so that each
Spokesman will have the benefit of your knowledge with reference to
conditions on the Moon. Each group will re-enter its particular aircar,
retaining control of the cube in each case, of course, and will at once
repair to his proper station. Telepathy is the mode of communication
with the cubes, and you rule them by your will. Each group, when
assembled by my father, will choose a leader before quitting this
laboratory, and such leader will remain in command of his group, under
the overlordship of the Spokesman to whom he reports with his group. You
understand!
"Your loyalty is unquestioned. You will consecrate your lives to the
welfare of the Gens to which you are going, since you no longer have a
Gens of your own!"
Sarka turned to the cubes, which had formed in a line just inside the
Exit Dome, and issued a mental command to the cube that had piloted his
aircar from the Moon. The cube faded out instantly, appearing
immediately afterward on the table of the vari-colored lights.
"Father," said Sarka, "while I am issuing orders to the Spokesmen,
please see if you can discover the secret of these cubes: how they are
actuated, the real extent of their intelligence! The rest of you, with
your cubes, depart immediately and report to your new Gens!"
* * * * *
Within ten minutes the divisions had been made, and the Radiant People
had entered the aircars and, outside the laboratory, risen free of the
Earth, and turned, each in its proper direction, for the Gens of its
assignment. The Sarkas and Jaska watched them go.
There remained but one aircar, standing outside on half a dozen of those
grim tentacles, with two tentacles swinging free, undulating to and fro
like serpents. Harnessed electricity actuating the tentacles--cars and
tentacles subservient to the cubes.
The aircars safely on their way, Sarka stepped to the Master Beryl,
tuned it down to normal speed, and signalled the Spokesmen of the Gens.
"The Moon and Mars are in alliance against us, and Dalis has allied
himself and his Gens with the ruler of the Moon! I don't know yet what
form the attack will take, but know this: that the safety of the world,
of all its people, rests in your hands, and that the war into which we
are going is potentially more vast than expected when this venture
began, and more devastating than the fight with the aircars of the Moon!
Coming to you, in aircars which we managed to take from the
Moon-people, are such of the people of the Gens of Dalis as were able to
return with me. Question them, gather all the information you can about
them, and through them keep control of the cubes which pilot the
aircars, for in the cubes, I believe, lies the secret of our possible
victory in the fight to come!"
* * * * *
Sarka scarcely knew why he had spoken the last sentence. It was as
though something deep within him had risen up, commanded him to speak,
and deeper yet, far back in his consciousness, was a mental picture of
the devastation he had witnessed on his flight above the area that had
once housed the Gens of Dalis.
For in that ghastly area, he believed, was embodied an idea greater than
mere wanton destruction, just as there was an idea back of the fiery
lights from Mars greater than mere display. Somehow the two were allied,
and Sarka believed that, between the blue column, and the fiery lights
from Mars, the fate of the world rested.
He could, he believed, by manipulation of the Beryls that yet remained,
maneuver the world away from that blue column--which on the Earth was
invisible. But to have done so would have thwarted the very purpose for
which this mad voyage had been begun. The world had been started on its
mad journey into space for the purpose of attacking and colonizing the
Moon and Mars.
The Moon had been colonized by the Gens of Dalis, already in potential
revolt against the Earth. Mars was next, and by forcing the Earth into
close proximity to Mars the people of the Moon had played into the hands
of Earth-people--if the people of Earth were capable of carrying out the
program of expansion originally proposed by Sarka!
If they were not ... well, Sarka thought somewhat grimly, the resultant
cataclysmic war would at least solve the problem of over-population!
Inasmuch as the Earth was already committed to whatever might transpire,
Sarka believed he should take a philosophic view of the matter!
* * * * *
Sarka turned to an examination of the Master Beryl, and even as he
peered into the depths of it, he thought gratefully how nice it was to
be home again, in his own laboratory, upon the world of his nativity. He
even found it within his heart to feel somewhat sorry for Dalis, and to
feel ashamed that he had, even in his heart, mistreated him.
Then he thought, with a tightening of his jaw muscles, of the casual way
in which Dalis had destroyed Sarka the First, of his forcing his people
to undergo the terrors of the lake of white flames without telling them
the simple secret; of his betrayal of the Earth in his swift alliance
with Luar; or Luar herself when, as Lunar, a strange waif of Earth,
Dalis had sent her out as the first human passenger aboard a rocket to
the Moon. All his pity vanished, though he still believed he had done
right in sparing Dalis' life.
Suddenly there came an ominous humming in the Beryl, and simultaneously
signals from the vari-colored lights on the table. Sarka whirled to the
lights, noting their color, and mentally repeating the names of the
Spokesmen who signalled him.
Even before he gave the signal that placed him in position to converse
with them, he noted the strange coincidence. The Spokesmen who desired
speech with him were tutelary heads of Gens whose borders touched the
devasted area where Dalis had but recently been overlord!
An icy chill caressed his spine as he signalled the Spokesmen to speak.
"Yes, Vardee? Prull? Klaser? Cleric?"
* * * * *
The report of each of them was substantially the same, though couched in
different words, words freighted heavily with strange terror.
"The devasted area has suddenly broken into movement! Throughout that
portion of it visible from my Gens area, the fused mass of debris is
bubbling, fermenting, walking into life! An aura of unearthly menace
seems to flow outward from this heaving mass, and the whole is assuming
a most peculiar radiance--cold gleaming, like distant starshine!"
"Wait!" replied Sarka swiftly. "Wait until the people I have sent you
have arrived! Report to me instantly if the movement of the mass is
noticeably augmented, and especially so if it seems to be breaking up,
or coagulating into any sort of form whatever!"
Then he dimmed the lights, indicating that for the moment there was
nothing more to be said. Just then his father, face very gray and very
old, entered the room of the Master Beryl from the laboratory.
"Son!" he said. "The crisis is almost upon us! The Martians are coming!"
CHAPTER XXI
_Cubes of Chaos_
Sarka raced into the Observatory, wondering as he ran how the attack of
the Martians would manifest itself; but scarcely prepared for the
brilliant display which greeted his gaze. Compared to the oncoming
flames from Mars, the preceding display of lights had been as nothing.
The whole Heavens between the Earth and Mars seemed alight with an
unearthly glare, as though the very heart of the sun had burst and
hurled part of its flaming mass outward into space.
On it came with unbelievable speed.
But there was no telling, yet, the form of the things which were coming.
"What are they?" whispered Jaska, standing fearlessly at Sarka's side.
"Interplanetary cars? Rockets? Balls of fire? Or beings of Mars?"
"I think," said Sarka, after studying the display for a few minutes,
"that they are either rockets or fireballs, perhaps both together! But
the Martians cannot consolidate any position on the Earth without coming
to handgrips. Since they must know this, we can expect to see the people
of Mars themselves when, or soon after, those balls of fire strike the
Earth!"
Sarka raced back to the room of the Master Beryl as a strident humming
came through to him.
* * * * *
The Spokesmen of the Gens whose borders touched those of the devasted
Dalis area, were reporting again, and their voices were high pitched
with fear that threatened to break the bounds of sanity.
"The ferment in the devasted area," was the gist of their report, "is
assuming myriads of shapes! The fused mass has broken up into isolated
masses, and each mass of itself is assuming one of the many forms!"
"What forms?" snapped Sarka. "Quickly!"
"Cubes! Thousands and millions of cubes, and the cubes themselves are
forming into larger cubes, some square, some rectangular! In the midst
of these formations are others, mostly columnar, each column consisting
of cubes which have coalesced into the larger form from the same small
cubes! The columnar formations are topped by globes which emit an
ethereal radiance!"
"Listen!" Sarka's voice was vibrant with excitement. "Spokesmen of the
Gens, make sure that every individual member of your Gens is fully
equipped with flying clothing including belts and ovoids--prepared for
an indefinite stay outside on the roof of the world! Get your people out
swiftly, keeping them in formation! Keep about you those people of Dalis
whom I sent you, and understand before you break contact with your
Beryls, that instructions received from these people come from me! In
turn, after you have quitted the hives, anything you wish to say to me
you can repeat to any one of the glowing people of Dalis!"
The contacts were broken. Sarka stared into the Beryl, glancing swiftly
in all directions, to see whether his orders were obeyed.
Out of the myriads of hives were flying the people of all the Gens of
Earth, their vast numbers already darkening the roof of the world. The
advance fires from Mars seemed to have no effect on them, which Sarka
had expected, since the fires seemed to consume nothing they had touched
previously.
* * * * *
By millions the people came forth. People dressed in the clothing of
this Gens or that, wearing each the insignia of the house of his
Spokesman. A brave show. Sarka could see the faces of many, now in
light, now in shadow, as the advance fires of Mars lighted them for a
moment in passing, then left them in shadow as the bursting balls of
fire faded and died.
Strange, too, that the fireballs made no noise. Noiseless flame which
rebounded from the surface of the Earth broke in silence, deluging the
heavens with shooting stars of great brilliance. Through its display
flew the people of the Gens, mustering in flight above flight, each to
his own level, under command of the Spokesmen of the Gens.
"How long, father," queried Sarka, "should it take to empty the Gens
areas?"
"The people of Earth have been waiting for word to go into battle since
we first sent the people of Dalis against the Moon-men. They still are
ready! The dwellings of our people, _all_ of them, can be emptied within
an hour!"
"I wonder," mused Sarka, "if that is soon enough!"
Perhaps yes, perhaps no. It would be a race, in any case. Sarka divided
his attention between the rapidly changing formations of the Moon-cubes
in that devasted area and the onrushing charge of the fire-balls from
Mars. All were visible to him through the Master Beryl, and from the
Observatory, though the Martian fire-balls were now so close that the
vanguard of them could even be seen in the Master Beryl, adjusted to
view only activities on the surface of the Earth.
Even as the last flights of the Gens of Earth were slipping into the icy
air from the roof of the world, the Moon-cubes began their terrifying,
appalling attack, every detail of which could be seen by Sarka from the
Master Beryl.
* * * * *
Those columns, composed of cubes, seemed to be the leaders of a vast
cube-army. The top of each of them was a gleaming globe whose eery light
played over the country immediately surrounding each column, their weird
light reflected in the squares, rectangles and globes that other cubes
had formed.
Sarka sought swiftly among the columns for the one which might
conceivably be in supreme command; but even as he sought the Moon-cubes
moved to the attack. The globes on the tops of the columns dimmed their
lights, and the squares, rectangles and globes got instantly into
terrible motion.
Southward from the position in which they had formed they began to move,
the squares and rectangles apparently sliding along the surface of the
scarred and broken soil, the globes rolling.
Southward there was the vast wall of the Gens that bordered the devasted
area in that direction, and the cube-army was instantly at full charge
toward this, in what Sarka realized was, to be a war of demolition!
Within a minute, Sarka was conscious of a trembling of all the
laboratory, and the eyes of Jaska were wide with fear. Swiftly the
trembling grew, until sound now was added to the vast, awesome tremor--a
vast, roaring crescendo of sound that mounted and mounted as the speed
of the cube-army increased. The vanguard of the cube-army struck the
dwelling of the Gens southward of that of Dalis, and a mighty,
rocketing roar sounded in the Master Beryl, was audible inside the
laboratory, even without the aid of the Beryl, at whose surface Sarka
stared as a man fascinated, hypnotized.
* * * * *
The cube-army struck the dwellings, disappeared into them as though they
had been composed of tissue paper, and continued on! Over the tops of
the cube-army toppled the roofs of the dwellings, there, in the midst of
the cubes, to be ground to powder, with a sound as of a million
avalanches grinding together in some awesome, sun-size valley.
Southward, in the wake of the chaotic charge, moved a mighty, gigantic
crevasse, whose sides were the walls of the hives left standing. And
still the cube-army moved in, grinding everything it touched to dust,
trampling buildings into nothingness, destroying utterly along a front
hundreds of miles wide, and as deep as the dwellings of men!
"God!" cried Sarka, his voice so tense that both his father and Jaska
heard it above the roaring which shook and rocked the world. "Do you
see? The Moon-cubes are destroying the dwelling of our people, and the
Martians are to destroy the people who have fled!"
"There must be a way," said Sarka the Second quietly, "to circumvent the
cubes! But what? Your will still rules the cubes which piloted you from
the Moon?"
"Yes," replied Sarka tersely, "but there are only a dozen of the cubes.
What can they do against countless millions of them? Cubes which are
Moon-cubes, brought to the Earth in the heart of that blue column, here
reformed to create an army which is invincible, because it cannot be
slain! It means that the Moon-people themselves, thousands of miles out
of our reach, have but to sit in comfort and watch their cube-slaves
destroy us! When they have laid waste the Earth, the Martians have but
to finish the fight!"
* * * * *
"If, beloved," said Jaska, "your will commands those twelve cubes, it
can also command all the others, for they must be essentially the same.
Call on the rebels of Dalis to help you!"
"Then what of the Spokesmen of the Gens, who will be out of contact with
me?"
"They must stand on their own feet, must fight their own battle! Call to
you the people who have passed through the white flames, and fight with
the distant will of Luar and of Dalis for control of the cube-army!"
Again that exaltation, which convinced him he could move mountains with
his two hands, coursed through the being of Sarka.
Quietly be answered Jaska.
"I believe you are right," he said softly. "Those of us who have passed
through the flames which bore these Moon-cubes will control the cubes,
even bend them to our will. The Spokesmen must vanquish the Martians or
perish!"
Then he sent his mental commands to the Spokesmen:
"Meet the Martians when they arrive and destroy or drive them back! You
live only if you win! We speak no more until victory is ours! People of
the Gens of Dalis, go to the areas being devasted by the cubes, taking
your cubes and aircars with you, and I will join you there! _And Jaska
with me!_"
Sarka had not himself mentally spoken the last four words. Jaska had
thought-spoken them, before he could prevent. He turned upon her, lips
shaping a command that she remain behind. But she forestalled him.
"I, too, have been through the white flames! You may have need of all of
us!"
CHAPTER XXII
_The Struggle for Mastery_
The people of all the Gens of Earth were now between two fires. The
cube-army, ruled by the mistress of the Moon, was laying waste the
dwellings of the Gens, destroying them with a speed and surety of which
no earthquake, whatever its proportions, would have been capable. The
Gens were forced out upon the roof of the world--where, scarcely had
they maneuvered into their prearranged formations, than the Martians
struck.
Those huge balls of fire, larger even than the aircars of the Moon,
landed in vast and awe-inspiring numbers on the roof of the
world--landed easily, with no apparent effort or shock. The light of
them made all the world a place of vast radiance, save only that portion
which was being destroyed by the cube-army, and this area had a cold,
chill radiance of its own.
By groups and organisations the fire-balls of Mars landed, and rested
quiescent on the surface of the globe.
Sarka, pausing only long enough in his laboratory to study this strange
attack and to discover how it would get under way, was at the same time
preparing to go forth to take his own strange part in the defensive
action of Earthlings. A vast confidence was in him....
"We will lose millions of people, father," he said softly. "But it will
end in our victory, in the most glorious war ever fought on this Earth!"
"That is true, my son!" replied the older man sadly.
* * * * *
For several minutes the vast fire-balls, which seemed to be monster
glowing octagons, rested where they had landed, and even then the Gens
of the people were closing on them, bringing their ray directors and
atom-disintegrators into action.
Then, when the Earthlings would have destroyed the first of the vast
fire-balls--and Sarka was noting that the flames which bathed the balls
seemed to have no effect whatever on Earthlings, save to outline them in
mantles of fire--the fire-balls wakened to new life.
They opened like the halves of peaches falling apart, and out upon the
roof of the world poured the first Martians Earth had ever seen!
They were more than twice the size, on the average, of Earth people, and
at first glance seemed to resemble them very much, save that their eyes,
of which each Martian was possessed of two, were set on the ends of long
tentacles which could stretch forth to a length of two feet or more from
the eye-sockets and thus be turned in any direction. Each eye was
independent of its neighbor, as one could look forward while the other
looked backward, or one could look right while the other looked left.
Each Martian possessed two arms on each side of a huge, powerful torso,
and legs that were like the bolls of trees, compared to the slender
limbs of Earthlings. All the Martians seemed to be dressed in the skins
of strange, vari-colored beasts. Each carried in his upper right hand a
slender canelike thing some three feet in length, from whose tip there
flashed those spurts of flame which had puzzled the Earth people before
the actual launching of the attack.
* * * * *
Beyond these weapons, the Martians seemed to possess no weapons of
offense at all, nor of defense.
"With our ray directors and atom-disintegrators," said Sarka, moving
into the Exit Dome with Jaska, "we can blast them from the face of the
Earth!"
But in a moment he realized that he had spoken too hastily.
The nearest fire-ball was, of course, within the area of the Gens of
Cleric, and Sarka could here see with his naked eyes all that
transpired. The Martian passengers, who moved swiftly away from their
fire-ball vehicles, then a flight of the Gens of Cleric descended upon
the fireball and its fleeing passengers, with tiny ray directors and
atom-disintegrators held to the fore, ready for action.
The Martians, at some distance from their glowing vehicle, paused and
formed a ragged line, facing the ball, staring at the descending people
of the Gens of Cleric, their tentaclelike eyes waving to and fro, oddly
like the tentacles of those aircars of the Moon.
The flight was hovering above the first fireball. In a second now, at
the command of an underling, the ray directors would destroy fire-ball
and Martians as thoroughly as though they had never existed at all.
* * * * *
But then a strange thing happened. At that exact moment, timing their
actions to fractions of seconds, the Martians raised and pointed their
canelike weapons of the spurting flames. They pointed them, however, not
at the Earthlings, but at the fire-ball which had brought them to Earth!
Instantly the fire-ball exploded as with the roaring of a hundred mighty
volcanoes--and the descending flight of the Gens of Cleric was blasted
into countless fragments! Bits of them flew in all directions. Many
dropped, the mangled, infinitesmal remains of them, down to the roof of
Earth, while many were hurled skyward through formations above
them--while those formations, to a height of a full two miles, were
broken asunder. Many flights above that first flight were smashed and
broken, their individual members hurled in all directions by that one
single blast of a single fire-ball.
Individuals who escaped destruction were hurled end over end, upward
through other flights higher above, and the whole aggregation of flights
which had been concentrated on that first fire-ball was instantly
demoralized, while full fifty per cent of its individuals were instantly
torn to bits!
Sarka groaned to the depths of him.
"The leader of the Martians, or the master who sent them here, sent them
here to win. For if they do not win, they cannot return to Mars, as they
will have destroyed their vehicles! Their confidence is superhuman!"
"Have faith in the courage of Earthlings, son!" said Sarka.
It was much to ask, for if one single one of these fire-balls could
wreak such havoc with the people of Earth, what would be the destruction
by the countless other unexploded fireballs of the Martians?
* * * * *
Still, the Spokesmen themselves must discover a way to hold their own,
to win against the Martians. For Sarka there was greater work to do. He
must oppose the wills of Luar and of Dalis in a mighty mental conflict,
which would decide whether the homes of men would be saved, or utterly
destroyed by the Moon-cubes.
But as he left through the Exit Dome, with Jaska by his side, he
shuddered, and was just a little sick inside as he saw the fearful
result of that first explosion of a Martian fire-ball! Bits of human
wreckage were scattered over the Earth for a great distance in all
directions from where the fire-ball had exploded. And at that spot a
gigantic crater had been torn in the roof of the world, going down to
none knew what depths.
Even the Martians, here only to consolidate positions which had passed
the demolition of the Moon-cubes, were capable of demolitions almost as
ghastly and complete as those of the cubes!
The sound was incapable of being described, for outside the laboratory
the sound of the advance of the Moon-cubes eating into the dwellings of
men, tumbling them down, grinding them to powder, was cataclysmic in its
mighty volume. A million express trains crashing head-on into walls of
galvanized iron at top speed, simultaneously.
Ear-drum crashing blows as fireballs exploded. The screams and shrieks
of maimed and dying Earthlings--of Earthlings unwounded but possessed of
abysmal fear....
* * * * *
Then, resolutely, Sarka turned his back on the conflict between the
Martians and the people of Earth, and hurtled across the devastated
roof of the world toward that area which was feeling the destructive
force of the vandal cube-army. As he flew, Jaska keeping pace with him
in silence, his mind was busy.
Passage through the white flames of the Moon had given him the key.
Those white flames--source of all life on the Moon--rendered almost
godlike those whom it bathed ... gave them unbelievable access of mental
brilliance ... were the source of that blue column which had forced the
Earth outward toward Mars ... were the source, in some way, of the cubes
themselves, as he and Jaska, after passing through them, owed their now
near-divinity to the same white flames! Those flames had made Luar
mistress of the Moon--therefore of the Gnomes and of the cubes!
Therefore, Sarka, having been bathed in the flames, should make himself
master of the cubes, if he could out-will the combined determinations of
Luar and of Dalis!
His confidence was supreme as he fled through outer darkness toward the
eery light which came from the area of demolitions. Looking ahead, he
could see tiny glows in the sky, which he knew to be the rebels of
Dalis' Gens, flying to keep their rendezvous with him.
Higher mounted his courage and his confidence as he approached the
roaring crash, perpetual and always mounting, which showed him where the
cube-army was busiest. The sound vibrated the very air, causing the
bodies of Sarka to tingle with it, causing them to flutter and shake in
their flight with its awesome power. But they did not hold back, flew
onward through the gloom, leaving behind them the brightly lighted areas
where Gens of Earth battled with the fireballs of the Martians, moving
into the area of the eery glowing of the cubes.
* * * * *
Just as he approached the spot where mighty dwellings were tumbling
before the march of the cube-army, he sent a single command toward the
cube which had piloted him from the Moon.
"Come to me on the edge of the crevasse nearest the place of most
destruction!"
Would the cube now be subservient to his will? He wondered. Everything
depended upon that. If not, then he might as well try to stay the forces
of a mighty avalanche with his breath, as halt the cube-army with his
will.
But strangely enough, the closer he came to the vast area of tumbling
dwellings the calmer he became, the more sure that he would win against
the cubes.
For when he landed at the lip of the crevasse, across which he could
look for a hundred miles, a single cube gleamed brightly almost at his
feet, awaiting his orders!
One by one, by twos, threes, fours, dozens, came the glowing people who
had been bathed in the white flames of the Moon's life-source, and as
each dropped down beside him, Sarka gave a command.
"Drop down in the midst of the cubes! Make your own cube the rallying
point for this vast army of cubes, force the cubes to desist in their
mighty destruction, be subservient to your will--and do you, each of
you, be subservient to _my_ will!"
* * * * *
Away dropped the rebels, glowing points of white flame, dropping down
the sides of the crevasse, a mighty, awesome canyon, into the very heart
of the activity of the cubes, and from the brain of Sarka, aided by the
will of Jaska, went forth a simple command:
"Cease your march of destruction, O Moon-cubes, and harken to the will
of Sarka, your master! Draw back from your labors, and muster, not as
squares, rectangles and columns, but as individual cubes, in the area
already devastated by you! Rally about the glowing people who have
passed through the flames which were your Moon-mother, and wait for
orders! Take no further heed of commands from Dalis and Luar!"
Instantly it seemed to Sarka that he had drawn into some invisible
vortex which tore at his brain, at his body, at his soul. Inside him a
cold voice seemed to say:
"Fool, Sarka! My will is greater than yours!"
But though the force of the will of Luar, whose thought he recognized,
tore at him, almost shriveled the soul and brain of him with its might,
he continued to send his thought-command out to the Moon-cubes, forcing
it through the wall of Luar's will, hurling it like invisible
projectiles at the cube-army below.
Exultation possessed him, buoyed him up, gave him greater courage and
confidence as the moments passed for even as all his being concentrated
on the will-command to the cubes, his senses told him that the mighty
sound of destruction was dying away, fading out.
* * * * *
Slower now the dwellings fell, slower moved the Moon-cubes; and as they
slowed in their mighty march through the dwellings of men, so increased
the confidence, the power of will, of Sarka and his people--the rebels
of the Gens of Dalis.
Then, after an hour, whose mighty mental conflict had bathed Sarka in
the perspiration of superhuman effort, the sound of destruction ceased
all together, and the dwellings ceased to fall.
A silent shout, like an inborn paean of rejoicing, surged through Sarka
as he noted the retreat from the dwellings of men, of the Moon-cubes!
Back and back retreated the squares and the rectangles, the columns and
the globes, breaking apart as they retreated.
Within fifteen minutes after the destruction had ceased, millions of
gleaming cubes winked upward from the bottom of the
crevasse--motionless, quiescent!
Sarka sent forth another thought.
"I am your master, O cubes of the Moon!"
No sound, no movement, answered him.
"Luar and Dalis are no longer able to command you!"
Still no sound or movement of the cubes.
* * * * *
Then, taking a deep breath, as of a swimmer preparing to dive into icy
water, Sarka gave a new command.
"Dissolve! Reform on the roof of the world in globes! Roll over the face
of the Earth, destroy the fire-balls of Mars--and take prisoners, inside
the globes, the attackers from Mars!"
Instantly the gleaming cubes vanished, and darkness as of a mighty pit
possessed the crevasse of destruction. Then, at the lip of the great
crevasse, the cubes swept into form--myriads of globes which gleamed
with the cold blue brilliance of the Moon!
They had no sooner formed as globes than they were in action again,
rolling over the roof of the world as with a rising crescendo of thunder
tumbling down the night-black sky. So mighty was their rush that the
roof of the world trembled and shook.
Above their charge raced Sarka and Jaska, and with them the rebels of
the Gens of Dalis.
All were present when the cubes crashed into the fire-balls from Mars,
swept the Martians within themselves as prisoners, held them
securely--and continued on, destroying the fire-balls in myriads. Here
and there fire-balls exploded on contact, destroying the globes, which
immediately reformed again, as though the explosions had not been felt
at all.
* * * * *
Sarka had won the allegiance of the Moon-cubes, which had defeated and
taken prisoners the Martians, destroying the vehicles in which they
might have returned to Mars. And as realization came, darkness settled
over the roof of the world; the last flare of Mars faded and died.
This done, the cubes formed in mighty rows, facing the laboratory of
Sarka. His heart beating madly with exultation, Sarka studied them. Then
he stepped into the Observatory, gazed away across the space which
separated the Earth from the Moon, sent a mental message winging
outward.
"Luar! Dalis!"
Faintly, fearfully, came the answer.
"We hear, O Sarka!"
"Shift the blue column away from the Earth! Do not interfere as we
return to our orbit about the sun! Obey, or I combine the total
knowledge of Mars, the Earth, and the Moon in an attack against you and
your Martian ally! Inform your ally that their people will not return,
that the Earth has need of them--but that two Gens of Earth will be
received by Martians in perfect amity, and these Gens allowed biding
places on Mars! Unless your ally obeys, the Martians in my hands will be
destroyed!"
In an hour the answer came, the snarling thought-answer of Dalis.
"We hear! We obey! But Dalis is never beaten while he lives! His day
will come!"
* * * * *
Sarka found himself feeling even a little sorry for sorely beaten Dalis;
but his face was grim as he sent another command to the people of Dalis
who had passed through the life-source of the Moon.
"Take command of the cubes, and force them to repair the damage which
has been done to the dwellings of men--to repair them completely, over
all the face of the Earth!"
As the glowing people hurried to obey, Sarka softly asked his father:
"But what shall we do with the Martians?"
Sarka the Second smiled.
"Release them and send them to the lowest level where, guarded by the
cubes, they will be set to constructing fireballs like those in which
they arrived for the use of Earth if Dalis, or the Martians, ever attack
again! And, son...."
"Yes, O my father?" said Sarka softly.
"I have another suggestion for the employment of the cubes! Let them
build aircars to be used by the Gens of Prull and of Klaser, as
transportation to Mars whenever you are ready for them to go!"
Sarka smiled boyishly, happily.
"Yes, O my father; and is there anything else?"
"Yes! Take Jaska as your mate! Do you not see that she is waiting for
you to speak?"
Sarka turned to Jaska, whose face was glorious in her surrender, and
whose lips were parted in a loving smile--which faded only when Sarka's
lips caressed it away.
(_The end._)
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